NSU and the University of Miami’s Miller School of Medicine were the only Florida medical schools to make the 50 highest student debt list. Both schools are private. UM was ranked No. 36 with $183,947 in graduate debt.

Two factors may contribute to UM’s comparative lower student debt than Nova Southeastern’s: UM has a considerably higher endowment ($887 million), compared with NSU’s $102 million. Endowments play a pivotal role in funding financial aid for students. Additionally, NSU’s in-state tuition at about $43,000 is higher than UM’s $42,000.

By comparison, Florida International University Medical School’s annual in-state tuition is $33,000. FIU is a public university.

The rankings, analyzed by Comet, a Delaware company that studies student loans, are not based on the quality of a school’s medical program.

NSU has graduated students through its Doctor of Osteophathic Medicine (D.O.) degree program.

In October, NSU earned preliminary accreditation for its new Davie medical school, the College of Allopathic Medicine. Final accreditation comes when the medical school — Broward’s first and Florida’s eighth — graduates its first class. Classes will begin in August with 50 accepted students. UM and FIU’s med schools have around 150 medical students per class. Tuition for NSU’s medical school will be $51,000 annually.

Schools just behind NSU in highest graduate debt on the AAMC report are: Michigan State University College of Human Medicine ($254,164); Pacific Northwest University of Health Sciences ($254,117); Rocky Vista University College of Osteopathic Medicine ($251,768) and Drexel University ($235,449).

The lowest average debt for 2015 graduates on the AAMC list is Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland at $165,341.

Nationwide, students who graduated from medical schools in 2017 owed nearly $195,000 on average, according to the AAMC report. The report also found that the average debt load is higher for 2017 graduates who graduated from a private med school: around $206,000.

Medical school debt increased 123.4 percent in a 25-year period from 1992 to 2017, according to the report. In 1992, the average medical school debt was $87,297.

So who should be able to pay that debt down the fastest? Probably plastic surgeons.

Plastic surgery had the largest income growth in the report, growing nearly 63 percent since 2011, from $270,000 average yearly reported salary to $440,000 in 2016. Orthopedics, emergency medicine, psychiatry and dermatology rounded out the Top 5.

The five specialties with the lowest income growth were led by oncology, which only grew about 12 percent from $295,000 in 2011 to $330,000 in 2016. Anesthesiology, radiology, ophthalmology and pulmonary medicine rounded out the list.